My Continent, 'Tis of Who?

Number of movies seen since last blog: Uh, I lost count at 10.
Number of Law & Order: CI episodes watched in last two weeks: 8
Number of geographic blunders made this week: 41
Number of books purchased: 2: "The City of Falling Angels" by John Berendt and "The Dark Tower" (does it have to end?) by Stephen King
Number of books read: hahahahahahahaha


And the question of the day comes to us not from history, but another area close to the American Idiot's heart - geography. And that question is: Is Central America part of North or South America?

I, growing up in America the way I did, assumed the only countries in North America were Canada and the U.S. Then a few years ago I shockingly learned that Mexico [insert studio audience gasps here] was also part of our continent and that English as a national language was not actually a pre-req for being part of good ole Norte America. But wait, my shock grew when earlier this year I found out that GREENLAND (which is not actually a country) is also part of N.A.

Well today came a crucial questions from one of my co-workers, "Is Central America part of North America?" A fierce battle of words broke out between reporters (who are not known for their fist fighting). They all immediately drew their Associated Press stylebooks, Webster's dictionaries or World Almanacs - depending on their poison of choice - and started flipping. As it turned out that while these periodicals are fine on the spelling of countries names, whether it's email or e-mail and major exports of Belize, they could tell us nothing about anything we'd actually be looking up.

Finally someone broke out an atlas, which put Central America solidly in the America of the North. There were some nasty words exchanged and some people switched sides, pretending they knew all along that Central America was part of the continent of North America. A few people still held to their solidly South America viewpoint, despite the atlas's clear evidence to the contrary. And then a small contingency of crazies decided to create an eight continent, stating unequivocally that Central America was actually a part of neither North nor South and in fact a continent of its own making.

This, folks, is the American newsroom in the 21st century. Enjoy your snapshot into our lunacy.

With my geography lesson out of the way, I move onto my newest plan: Beach Blogger, the Beach Bunny of the X Generation. I have no plan yet on how to make this a financially feasible lifestyle, but since I clearly am not spending my days stuffing my brain full of important geography, history, science or math, I can dedicate all my brain power to that activity. Any help your brains can provide will be greatly appreciated.